UNABLE TO REACH ANY LLLD CONSULTANT IN PRAGUE ! PLEASE HELP ...

[@llli*yaromirogiordano]

hello
I'm an Italian new mother living in Prague (CZ) and I'm having serious breastfeeding problems (I'm startign to give supplement ) . I'm not able to locate trhough the LLLI webpages any consultant living in Prague . All the numbers and emails of the website that I'm redirected after choosing the country (CZ) are wrong and do not work !
ANYONE HAS SOME VALID CONTACT FOR CZECH REPUBBLIC ? ANY PHONE NUMBER OR EMAIL ADDRESS ???

[@llli*mommal]

Hopefully someone will be able to get you valid contact information, but until then, can you tell us more about the problems you are having? We will help if we can!

[@llli*yaromirogiordano]

hello thanks for your suppport . So: my baby is now 3 weeks old .
After I went out form the hospital after 4 days after born I had just started to get milk but I was told it was not enough so I had to give some supplemnet fo artificial milk after every nursing . But I was really hoping to decrease it alreday after 2 -3 day I started to just give 50 maximum 100 ml of supplement everyday and not more. The baby was always attached to my breat and crying but I thought this was the right way to do .... trying to breastfeed as much as possible so to increas ethe milk production ! unfortunately after a week I was home the baby weight was 100 gr decreased so the pediatra told me to give 50 ml after every breastfeeding nurse ... after 3 days he regained 110 gr... and the pediatra told me to go on like that ... only to increase to 70 ml after each nursing if he was really hungry afterword. So it is one week that I'm doing like this (and tomorrow we will go to wieght him again ) but I have few questions and doubts :
1) I will never decrease the supplement in this way???
2) Since the beginning I'm using the nipple protections. Only today one person told me that they might even been the cause of my shortage of milk !because the baby do not such well with them!! but now my baby refuses to feed without them . so I'm looking for a consultant in order to understand if there are techniques to help him to start again to feed without the nipple protections !
3) I'm also extracting my milk with manual milk extractor but it seems that I have no time for doign it . In fact after every beastfeeding (usually 20 min for each breast) + supplement the baby is still a bit hungry and I have to attach him again to the breast ( for about another half an hour )in order to have him to sleep . After it he sleeps an average of 3 hours (4 hours at night in 2 times which I like so much :-)!) . So the question is : when should I use the milk extractor ?
4) and the other question is : between this cycle of breastfeeding /supplement /short breastfeeding + 2-3 hours sleeping the baby start to feed every 4 hours doing about 6-7 nursing everyday . I feel is his rithm now but might be too few times ??

thanks so much for your help (I think the question on how to stop using the nipple protections is the most urgent )

yaro

[@llli*mommal]

If you continue to give supplemental formula, it is likely that you will continue to need to do so. When you supplement, your baby doesn't nurse as much as he would if you did not supplement. That means your body misses the stimulation the baby is meant to give it, and that stimulation is what causes you to increase supply.

You are correct that the shields (nipple protectors) may be impacting your supply. This link covers how to stop using them: http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/...an-shield.html. Just note that you probably need to be patient. It can take a while for a baby to transition to nursing without the shield.

If you are having supply problems and your baby is not nursing effectively, the best thing you can do to increase supply is to pump. If you are using a manual pump, I strongly suggest trying to get a good double electric pump instead. Manual pumps tend to be the least effective type of pump on the market. A good pump will help you get more milk in less time. I agree that funding time to pump is very difficult when you also have to nurse, bottle-feed, and care for a baby. But it is worth trying to make the time for pumping. If all goes well, it will only be temporary!

You are also correct that your baby is nursing very infrequently, and that is probably impacting your supply. I would decrease the amount of supplement in the bottles by a little bit at a time and try to nurse him at least every 2-3 hours during the day. More often would be even better!

[@llli*lidarln]

If you continue to give supplemental formula, it is likely that you will continue to need to do so. When you supplement, your baby doesn't nurse as much as he would if you did not supplement. That means your body misses the stimulation the baby is meant to give it, and that stimulation is what causes you to increase supply.

You are correct that the shields (nipple protectors) may be impacting your supply. This link covers how to stop using them: http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/...an-shield.html. Just note that you probably need to be patient. It can take a while for a baby to transition to nursing without the shield.

If you are having supply problems and your baby is not nursing effectively, the best thing you can do to increase supply is to pump. If you are using a manual pump, I strongly suggest trying to get a good double electric pump instead. Manual pumps tend to be the least effective type of pump on the market. A good pump will help you get more milk in less time. I agree that funding time to pump is very difficult when you also have to nurse, bottle-feed, and care for a baby. But it is worth trying to make the time for pumping. If all goes well, it will only be temporary!

You are also correct that your baby is nursing very infrequently, and that is probably impacting your supply. I would decrease the amount of supplement in the bottles by a little bit at a time and try to nurse him at least every 2-3 hours during the day. More often would be even better!

all of this but especially the bolded, for me I did almost the same as you with the supplementing right away and to stop was so so hard, but I just fed him at the breast more and more each day and would commit to a onlt a specific amount of supplement each day and after three days decrease it a tiny bit more, and then do it all over again....

[@llli*LLLKaren]

I can't find any active LLL Leaders for the Czech Republic in the LLLI database either. Is calling one in Italy an option for you? There are quite a few there.

http://www.lllitalia.org/

Most of the concern about nipple shields harming milk supply comes from the older rubber kind. More recent studies of the newer silicone shields have not shown the same problems.

If your baby's weight looks good today, you could try what mommal and lidarln have suggested and decrease the supplement a little bit while nursing more often. Try to nurse about 10-12 times every 24 hours. That's every 2-3 hours, but it's okay to nurse more often than that at some times (many babies want to nurse much more often in the evening, for example) and to have a little longer stretch at other times.

Let us know how the weighing goes!